The Wonder Day is best known for its educational tours that reveal how Southwark’s recycling and waste is sorted into raw materials for manufacturing or processed into a low carbon fuel for energy recovery. This year the Wonder Day will also feature upcycling and sustainability with educational and fun drop-in workshops taking place throughout the day.
These workshops will offer advice and tips on how to make more of your regular household items that you might otherwise throw away. One of the workshops will be dedicated to glass upcycling and revamping. Visitors attending the day can bring any glass they would like to reuse and learn how to paint and decorate it to use in a host of new ways.
As well as glass upcycling there will be other arts and crafts taking place for all ages to enjoy including badge making and painting papier mache animals.
Sharon Ellis, the coordinator of the Wonder day for Veolia said: “Sustainability is at the heart of what Veolia is all about and with that in mind this year’s Wonder Day is about highlighting the benefits of reuse, recycling and upcycling. Our reuse and upcycling workshops have been hand-picked as they embrace the Wonder Day theme but above all they will be fun, interesting and relevant for visitors of all ages to enjoy.”
In addition to the workshops there lots to do on the day including…
- Recycling and general waste tours of the facility that take visitors on an intriguing and fascinating journey about what happens to Southwark’s waste.
- Dr Bike who will be providing a free service/safety checks. Plus he will be able to answer any bike related questions including cycle safety and confidence advice.
- Wild birds display. Find out which wild bird works on site to reduce unwelcome pests.
- ‘R3cycle’, our friendly remote controlled robot made from old recycling bins, R3 loves to entertain children.
- Yellow plant display. Little ones who love diggers, trucks and shovels can explore the big machines that work on site and learn what they do.
- Recycling Discovery Centre. Discover the origins of materials, the recycling lifecycle, and play on a mini version of the facility.
Alongside all this there will be the junk orchestra, bouncy castle and lots of free refreshments!
Cllr Ian Wingfield, Cabinet Member for Environment and the Public Realm said: “I would encourage everyone to visit our recycling centre and see modern design and engineering, working alongside wild birds to create a sustainable recycling solution. With upcycling workshops, big machinery tours and R3cycle, the friendly in-house robot, it’s a wonderfully quirky day out for the family.”
For more information regarding tour rules and things to do on the day CLICK HERE